See you at Market!! Saturday April 2nd

We'll be there with cold weather veggie starts: Arugula, Asian Greens, Peas, Lettuce, Kale,  Bok Choy and Salad Bowl planters.

How to "Harden Off" your plants

Acclimating Your Plants before planting them in your garden

WeeBee Farms takes pride in selling you plants that are ready for planting today. However, during periods of extreme weather, we need to protect the plants in the greenhouse and they may need re-acclimated to the outdoors. Or you may have kept your plants indoors or in the shade for a few days and will need to harden them off yourself before planting.
Cold weather plants  (lettuce, kale, broccoli, peas, etc) Plant these in April!!!!!
Acclimating your plants to the outdoors is extremely important to their survival. Because plants usually are grown in greenhouses, they've been pampered. They need to be introduced slowly to the elements of wind and intense sun. The cold temperatures don't bother the plants as much as wind and sun. Once fully hardened off they can take quite a bit of snow, and cold down to 10 or 20 degrees.
Initially, you will put plants outdoors only for short periods of time, perhaps for an hour.  (If you see it wilting, put it back in the shade for a while). You'll want to set them in a semi-shaded area of the yard. Gradually, you will increase the time plants are kept outdoors; you also will gradually increase their exposure to sun. After 6 to 8 days, these plants will be ready for the outdoor life.
Do not cut back on watering. Plants that are in small pots dry out very quickly and need to be kept moist. Plants are also more susceptible to heat and cold in their small pots. Once in the ground, the soil will moderate the temperatures.
It's a good idea to transplant on a cloudy day or in the evening, when the plants won't get full exposure to the hot sun on their first day in the ground. Water the plants and planting hole deeply.
Hot Weather Plants  (Basil, Tomatoes, Peppers, Cucumbers, Squash, Beans)
We don't plant our tomatoes or basil out until May 31st, Peppers a week or two later. They will die at 32 degrees, and they do NOT like cold ground temperatures, especially peppers. We have been successful at growing tomatoes and peppers for 16 years. We are in Boulder County 10 miles north of Boulder. Boulderites may be able to get away with planting a week or so earlier.

9 days til the first Farmer's Market!!

I am looking forward to seeing a lot of familiar faces on April 2nd! Lots of lettuce, kale and other cold weather plants are thriving in the greenhouse (despite losing electricity for a couple of days).

Onions, Swiss chard and kale

lettuce seedlings - "Freckles"

Swiss Chard and Lacinato (Dinosaur) Kale seedlings

We plan to be at market on April 2nd assuming we can get some of the plants hardened off enough to sell by then.

This Wednesday we were just about ready to put down the drip lines since the garlic plots had dried out just enough from the March 17-18th snow, when the wind picked up and we decided to wait. Then we got about a foot of heavy wet snow, so it'll be a while now.

This is a little section of garlic in the (foreground) looking very scenic in the earlier snow. With the more recent (3/23) snow it is totally covered up. This will be good for the garlic in the long run, but will make laying down the drip lines trickier.
The garlic is looking exceptionally good due to the favorable winter (good snow cover, good moisture, cold temps, not too much wind). We will cross our fingers for no natural disasters (like the hail and flooding we had at our farm last June.)

The garlic came up right at the usual time- January 29th. Only the early garlic was up then (the Turbans like Tzan, Uzbek and Shantung Purple). Now the others are coming. German Extra Hardy, Chesnok Red and Inchelium Red are about a 1/2" high.

Tzan on February 24th

Uzbek Turban on Feb 24th

Photos are from February 24th

Still some garlic left to buy!

We have bulbs and bargain bags of Persian Star- one of our most popular garlics. Also Inchelium Red -  mild, smooth and long-storing.  We've been giving out taste samples of the Inchelium Red at the last few markets and it seems like everyone loves it!
There are a few other miscellaneous garlic bulbs we'll have too.
     Although this has been a very challenging farming year the amount of support and goodwill we received at market has been wonderful and inspiring. Thank you all for visiting WeeBee Farms and buying our "not so pretty" garlic this year!!
The Boulder market will be going til November 21st, with the Winter Fair happening in early December.
        •Persian Star- Spicy, exotic, and very flavorful. Try on salads, in dips or in pesto. Great stir-fried with veggies! Slice thinly and serve on crackers. Also is versatile for all kinds of cooking from sauteing to sauces and soups. Originally from Uzbekistan. Stores to December. 
 

Selling Garlic tomorrow October 3rd and Saturday October 10th

Yes, we are starting to run out of garlic! There are lots of bargain bags and variety bags to choose from including some long-storing garlic. We also have some individual bulbs of Inchelium Red, Amethyst, Canadian, Shantung Purple and a few more. And some variety bags of planting garlic. New this week: Bogatyr (description below.) Next week we will have some Siberian garlic as well (strong and spicy!). If we don't sell out on the 10th we'll be back on Oct 17th.

KGNU interview link

This morning KGNU was at the market doing a live broadcast. Robin Claire did an interview with me. If you'd like to hear it go to the archives from this morning (Saturday 9/26) during "Old Grass GNU Grass". It plays from 2:40 -2:46. Here's a link http://kgnu.org/shows.php
Robin did a nice job and it was fun.

Garlic Report, descriptions

We have 3 new types of garlic to sell this week: Canadian, Brown Tempest, and Amethyst. The descriptions and color codes are below.
Unfortunately we are out of the individual bulbs of Chesnok Red- but we do have lots of "Bargain bags" of it left for the next two weeks or so. The bargain bags have smaller, blemished or split garlic which we have a lot of this year thanks to hail and flooding and muddy fields. It still tastes great, but won't store quite as long if it is split.

Garlic color-codes from garlic we sold on September 5th

Gourmet Garlic From WeeBee Farms

(Color codes- bulbs are marked on top with colors)

To taste, slice thinly (raw) & serve on a cracker

• Chesnok Red- Excellent-tasting hard neck garlic, originally from the Republic of Georgia. Earthy with a unique zesty bite. For roasting, sauteing, casseroles & soups.

Highly medicinal. Stores to December.    PINK

 •   Inchelium Red-  Softneck that is excellent for roasting.  Discovered on the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington State. One of the best-tasting softneck garlics with a mild but lingering flavor. Stores til Dec. or Jan.     RED  

• German Extra Hardy- Great sliced raw, an addictive garlic taste, with full flavor. Big, easy to peel cloves. Excellent in red sauce: put in at end of heating. Loses flavor if cooked too long. Will keep to November.  BLUE

• Killarney Red-   The ultimate garlic for garlic bread! Has a  mellow, smooth flavor when cooked but is spicy raw. A Rocambole hardneck variety that peels easily. Eat by October. ORANGE

• Basque-  Super mild, yet very flavorful. Try raw on salad, cucumber slices or mixed with avocado and olive oil. Very addictive!  Harvests very early. Stores to November.    BROWN

• Tzan - (Also called “Mexican Red”). Superb Taste &  EASY to Peel! Tangy &  flavorful with pasta and for oriental cooking. A delicious raw garlic. Will stay firm through November, but sprouts early.  Harvests 3 weeks earlier than others GREEN

• Uzbek Turban-  Delightful flavor  -smooth and mellow.  Excellent choice for gazpacho, bruschetta, fresh tomato sauce.  A hardneck Turban from former USSR. Harvests very early. Stores to November.    NO COLOR

Update for August 29th Market

We will be at market tomorrow with 8 kinds of garlic in bins, some variety bags (5 different garlics) and "deluxe" variety bags (8 different garlics). We'll have lots of bargain bags too. So much of the garlic came out small or split due to the June hailstorm and flood here that much of the garlic has ended up as bargain bags. The Chesnok Red turned out especially small and "not pretty" so we will sell out of it earlier than usual. The German Extra Hardy won't last long either. It is mostly split open and so has also gone into bargain bags (great for Pesto making!).
In our main bins tomorrow we will have German Extra Hardy, Chesnok Red, Inchelium Red, Khabar, Tzan, Uzbek Turban, Redneck Wild and Chicago Italian. Under the table we'll have a little bit of Killarney Red, Malaysian and Shantung Purple. Ask if you want any of these.
Hope to see you soon!